US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday signed a presidential memorandum, announcing a crackdown on pharmaceutical advertising on television and social media platforms, a move that could disrupt billions of dollars in annual ad spending, reported Bloomberg.
According to the report, the memorandum directs the federal health agencies to require pharmaceutical companies to disclose more side effects in their advertisements and enforce existing rules about misleading ads. The Trump administration says the new measures aim to increase transparency for patients.
Besides New Zealand, the US is the only place where pharma companies can directly advertise to consumers.
Though the new regulations would stop short of banning the ads entirely, limiting pharmaceutical advertisements has been a longtime priority for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
However, the addition of stricter requirements to the ads will likely hit both pharmaceutical companies and the media companies that rely heavily on those advertising dollars.
In 2024, the drug firms spent $10.8 billion on direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising, said a report from the advertising data firm MediaRadar, adding that AbbVie and Pfizer Inc were particularly big spenders.
AbbVie alone spent $2 billion on direct-to-consumer drug ads in 2024, primarily on advertising the company’s anti-inflammatory drugs Skyrizi and Rinvoq. The medicines brought in more than $6.5 billion for AbbVie in the second quarter of 2025.
AbbVie couldn’t immediately be reached for comment, and Pfizer declined to comment.
On misleading advertisements
In addition to new regulations, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also plans to enforce existing rules around misleading advertising more strictly.
“The FDA is sending approximately 100 enforcement action letters today and thousands of letters warning the industry, including online pharmacies, who have increasingly been promoting drugs with no mention of side effects at all,” Bloomberg quoted FDA Commissioner Marty Makary as saying in a video posted on social media on Tuesday.
Drug advertising proponents say the ads can prompt patients to talk to their doctors about medical issues. However, critics point out that the ads generally feature expensive, brand-name medications.
One of the officials said, as quoted by Reuters, “There are ads that are clearly crossing the line with respect to the regulation, making any potential future legal action, I think, pretty clear cut.”
They said that drug ad enforcement has been increasingly lax, adding that the FDA did not send out any enforcement letters about drug advertising in 2024. However, they didn’t disclose which companies had been sent the enforcement or warning letters.
Role of social media influencers, TV ads and telehealth firms
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is also examining the role social media influencers play in advertising drugs, and whether they abide by the same standards applied to TV.
The administration is also planning to close a loophole that allows companies to refer patients to a website for information on side effects.
“They’re going to have to report all their side effects,” Kennedy said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday evening. “In some cases, that might create an advertisement that’s four minutes long.”
According to MediaRadar, 59% of the pharmaceutical industry’s expenditures in 2024 were on TV advertising, making it the third-highest-spending industry.
Another aspect at which the Trump administration is taking a closer look is at advertisements from telehealth companies, which operate differently from traditional pharma companies, added Bloomberg.
The administration did not name firms, but noted a Super Bowl advertisement from a telehealth company that received criticism from senators.
Earlier in February, Republican Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois sent a letter to the FDA about telehealth company Hims & Hers Health Inc’s Super Bowl ad, claiming it failed to disclose key safety and risk information.
Hims defended this, stating that it didn’t advertise one treatment or solution but aimed to raise awareness about obesity.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration mentioned greater enforcement by HHS, FDA, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice on ads run by telehealth companies and social media influencers under its Make America Healthy Again strategy, which it released.
(With agency inputs)
